Thursday, January 17, 2013

RUSH: Among the things that the president has announced today -- well, he didn't announce them all, but I have them. I have a summary, and I have the full list, 23 Gun Violence Reduction Executive Actions, 23 of them. One of them is involving doctors. Obama asks doctors to help deal with guns, and here is the key language in this. "Preserve the rights of health care providers --" i.e., doctors "-- to protect their patients and communities from gun violence. We should never ask doctors and other health care providers to turn a blind eye to the risks posed by guns in the wrong hands. Doctors and other mental health professionals play an important role in protecting the safety of their patients and the broader community by reporting direct and credible threats of violence to the authorities."

So your doctor has essentially been deputized now with an Obama executive action. Your doctor -- and this is what Andrew "The Pious" did in New York yesterday. Mental health professionals, therapists, if they detect that you might leave the office and go grab a gun and do something, they have to call and report you. And now doctors must do the same thing. "Doctors and other mental health professionals play an important role in protecting the safety of their patients and the broader community by reporting direct and credible threats of violence to the authorities.

"But there is public confusion about whether federal law prohibits such reports about threats of violence. The Department of Health and Human Services is issuing a letter," to doctors clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting on potential dangerous behavior by their patients. The executive action also protects the rights of health care providers to talk to their patients about gun safety. "Doctors and other health care providers also need to be able to ask about firearms in their patients’ homes and safe storage of those firearms, especially if their patients show signs of certain mental illnesses or if they have a young child or mentally ill family member at home."

So now doctors are being ordered, instructed to talk to patients and get information from them about gun ownership, where they are in their house, who has access to them, where the ammunition is kept. Doctors are now, quote, unquote, "permitted," unquote, to do this. It makes 'em deputies, agents of the state. And if they don't do it -- let's look at this the other way around. Let's say patient X goes to a doctor. The patient's got a sore throat, runny nose. The doctor does not ask the patient anything to do with the patient's guns. The patient then goes out and uses the guns sometime later and then the regime learns that the doctor didn't report that this patient indicated that he might be dangerous.

Look at the position this puts the doctors in. The doctors are now under the thumb of Obamacare. They had better comply. This is not a choice. Can you say hello to rapidly increasing, even higher and faster, malpractice insurance? They'd better comply. They'd better do as they're told. Now, this release from the White House also says, "Some have incorrectly claimed that language in the Affordable Care Act prohibits doctors from asking their patients about guns and gun safety."

But that's not true. Obamacare does not prevent them. In fact, the executive action today is almost essentially requiring it. "Medical groups also continue to fight against state laws attempting to ban doctors from asking these questions. 'The Administration will issue guidance clarifying that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit or otherwise regulate communication between doctors and patients, including about firearms.'

"Medical groups also continue to fight against state laws attempting to ban doctors from asking these questions. 'The Administration will issue guidance clarifying that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit or otherwise regulate communication between doctors and patients, including about firearms.'"

Again, folks, this is pushing people's buttons on purpose. This is gonna cause some people to snap. It might. This is going after the very reasonableness and sanity of people. It seems like the goal here is to get everybody on some kind of list and to have all kinds of people that we interact with end up reporting on what we do or say to hear to the government, to the, quote, unquote, the authorities. The authorities. That's a totalitarian word, "the authorities."

Why is Obama doing this? Why is he deliberately making people so upset? What's driving him? Don't ask me where the ACLU is. I mean, anything to get rid of guns, the ACLU's right there. Leftists are leftists, and that comes first with them. The ACLU as a civil rights organization is a bit of a laugher. They're just another branch of liberalism.

CALLER: Well, this is quite an honor, Dr. Limbaugh. The last time I made it past your screener, Tony Snow was guest hosting your show.

RUSH: The late, great Tony Snow.

CALLER: He was quite a man.

RUSH: He was a great guy. He really was. Well, I'm glad you got back through when I'm here.

CALLER: (chuckles) Well, as I said, it's an honor, sir. What I wanted to alert your listeners to is the whole thing of gun violence and doctors screening who's got guns.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: That started in the military. I retired from the Air Force a year ago. As part of our annual -- what did they call it? -- "fitness and wellness assessment" that we had to do online, they specifically asked: "Do you own guns? How many? How do you store them?"

RUSH: Oh, yeah. In fact, it's not a new thing. I may not'a communicated this well, and that's very odd. I think most people probably misunderstood me because I'm a brilliant communicator.

CALLER: (chuckles) Yes.

RUSH: What's happening here is this. For the longest time doctors have been required to ask parents and kids about this. I remember when this started, doctors were instructed to ask kids to rat out their parents on guns they had. That's some years ago. Opposition has built up to this. In Florida, they tried to pass a law to stop it. What this is about today is ensuring that it doesn't stop.

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: They're trying to bring a screeching halt to the effort to stop the instances of doctor-patient relationship where the doctor gains the information and passes it on. That's why the reference to Obamacare. If you go back and read Obamacare, despite what the president said in his little release today Obamacare does limit the government when it comes to gun in terms of doctors and what they can collect. They're now trying to reverse that. That's what this is about today. They're trying to stop any effort that would change what's already in place, which is doctors reporting on citizens via patient conferences.

CALLER: Well, the military has always been kind of a social experiment for what they can do in a hierarchical structure and then introduce it to the general public. Since I was retiring, it's kind of a sense of freedom that you finally have, and I told the doctor it was none of her business. (chuckles) That was just what I did, and I could get away with it, but every troop is getting asked these days.

RUSH: Yep, and people are getting upset with it. They never have liked it. This section in Obamacare, it's too much legalese to read to you. But the summary of it is it does in fact limit what data the authorities can collect from patients, what information the doctors can collect from patients and report to the authorities. That section in Obamacare was put in by the NRA. It was a sop given to the NRA. What the regime is doing today is, A, saying, "No, it's not really there; Obamacare does not prevent this," when it does, and, "It doesn't matter anyway because we're now gonna require it even more than we already have."

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: On this doctors reporting your gun life to, quote, unquote, "the authorities." Yeah, it's been underway for a while. It got started, by the way, with pediatricians asking young children about guns in their houses. Do you remember that now when I bring it up? Remember the outrage over this? I think goes back to the nineties, but it was insidious. It was brown-shirt kind of stuff. It was doctors talking Little Johnny. Little seven- or eight-year-old Johnny doesn't know what's going on.

"Hi, Johnny. Have you ever seen your father, while drinking Jack Daniels, go grab a gun and perhaps clean it or load it?"

(kid impression) "Yeah, my dad loves his gun. He's got a gun over there and guns under the bed."

The doctor's writing this all down. "Have you ever seen your dad fire his gun?"

"Oh, my dad goes out on the back porch and he shoots cans, Doctor! Yeah, he tries to practice shooting."

The doctor writes it all down. "Do you ever feel frightened, Little Johnny?"

"Oh, no! My dad's teaching me how to use it."

The doctor stops everything, gets on the phone, says, "To heck with writing this down!" and he calls it in.

So there have been efforts made as a result of this to stop it.

People don't like this. They undercut this. The NRA somehow succeeded in getting limits on the things that doctors can ask and report to the authorities in Obamacare. It's in there. There are limits. But there's a Washington Post story that was published back on December 30th. Let me read you a bit of an excerpt: "Some public health advocates, worried that the measure will hinder research and medical care, are calling on the White House to amend the language [that I just told you about] as it prepares to launch a gun-control initiative in January.

That means what happened today. So back on December 30th, the Washington Post runs a story suggesting that "public health advocates" are worried that there is now gonna be limits on what doctors can report. They called on the White House to amend the language in Obamacare to coincide with this new effort on gun control. The Washington Post back on November 30th called what happened today gun control.

It no longer is "gun control."

Now it's "gun violence."

Now it's "stopping gun violence," just like "global warming" used to be "global warming," but now it's "climate change" because there wasn't any warming. So they changed it to "climate change" to handle any weird occurrence in the climate and be able to blame it on you. Well, gun control, it's not working. But gun violence? Nobody's in favor of gun violence. There's not a person in the world who wants more of it.

So here comes the regime with 23 executive actions to reduce gun violence. Yaaay! And you got a bunch of little kids up there who are offered up as insurance policies. "Who could deny the children?" Obama and the Democrats are using them as human shields. By the way, I'm told that MSNBC practically went insane over my categorization of the children today at the White House as "human shields."

What did they say? I was tone deaf, insensitive. This is exactly what I was talking about yesterday, just as an example. The people at MSNBC didn't deal with the substance of what I said at all. All they did was launch into character assassination. So, as far as the people watching that network, I'm tone deaf, insensitive, mean-spirited, heartless, cold, cruel, whatever. I'm despicable, disrespectful to the children.

Meanwhile, what was happening on this program?

While they were doing that, what was happening is that I was defending everybody else's kids against charges made by people on the left today that your kids aren't as important as Obama's. It was I speaking up for your kids, while over on MSNBC they're trying to categorize me as some... This what they do. The bottom line is, we don't have to worry about this because Obama has done better than what the Washington Post asked back on December 30th.

The Washington Post on December 30th asked for language in Obamacare to amend it so that doctors would not have these eliminations on what they could ask patients, but Obama went even better. He just said the language doesn't say what it says, so there's no problem. I've got it right here! The story that came out: "Obama Asks Doctors to Help Deal with Guns."

Right here it says, "Doctors and other health care providers also need to be able to ask about firearms in their patients’ homes and safe storage of those firearms... Some have incorrectly claimed that language in the Affordable Care Act prohibits doctors from asking their patients about guns and gun safety." It doesn't? It does! But Obama just said today it doesn't say that. Folks, this is the kind of stuff that is...

Well, it's what I was talking about in the first hour, asking these questions. He's pushing people to snap. Obamacare says what it says, but he just said today it doesn't say that, and he put out a release today to go along with his 23 executive actions. (paraphrased) "Some are worried that the Affordable Care Act limits what doctors can say. It doesn't." Well, read it. It does, and they haven't amended it.

But, of course, whatever Obama says is the end of the story, and there is no problem.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This is Matthew in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Nice to have you, sir. Thank you for calling.

CALLER: Hey, Rush. Great to talk to you. I'm really disappointed to hear about the baby mama show.

RUSH: Yeah, it is. We were all looking forward to it.

CALLER: Yeah. Sorry to hear it's not gonna be on.

RUSH: We were gonna learn a lot. I think the real thing here is that somebody decided that we really don't want this seen, because we don't want any opposition to what's going on here. I think that's really what's behind this. Let me tell you something, more people have signed the petition to deport Piers Morgan than signed the petition to get rid of this show, and Piers Morgan is still here, so it's not about that. Don't doubt me.

CALLER: By the way, did you know, Piers Morgan had Alex Jones on there the other night, and it turned out Alex Jones had the Obama phone lady on his show. He changed her mind about voting for Obama, so maybe you ought to ask him about getting to the low-information voters.

RUSH: Well, let me tell you something. I think this is gonna be happening more and more. I've got a story here, I found this at Hot Air. The state of Missouri, my home state, is gonna start taxing violent video games. In Oklahoma, Legislator William Fourkiller, and that's really his name, William Fourkiller introduced a bill that it appears the Missouri legislation uses a fair amount of that language. A violent video game in the Missouri bill is defined as a video or computer game that has received a rating from the Entertainment Software Rating Board of Teen, Mature, or Adult Only. I'll give you the details after your phone call, but they're going to start taxing video games. Now, that is the Obama demographic. There's gonna be a lot of people waking up. Anyway, I don't want to step on any more of your call time. What was it you called about?

CALLER: What I was calling about is you were talking about, you know, basically what they want to do is start deputizing doctors, things like that, and I can tell you, you know, you're absolutely right. I remember when I was in medical school that's one of the things that they wanted us to ask. I'm an ER doctor, and I know that's one thing they taught us, examination of the child, they wanted us to ask the parents, "Do you have any guns in the house?"

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: I'm from Idaho, and I went to medical school in California. I remember I brought up the fact that most people are gonna say that's none of your business, and I remember how --

RUSH: Right. You don't want to be in that position. You don't want to be in that position anyway, do you?

CALLER: Absolutely not. Most doctors would not, absolutely. The only time I'd ever, ever want to know -- and this is already part of the law -- the only time I'd ever want to know if someone had guns in the house is if someone comes in and they're suicidal. The only reason I'd want to know is not to take it away, but to know if they had a specific plan to kill themselves, if they're gonna go home and use that gun, and, you know, that's something that we've been doing for years --

RUSH: Yeah. Exactly. You've been doing that for years. You don't want to spy. Doctors do not want to be turned into spies, particularly on innocent people. It's not what you go into medicine for. But it's coming. The regime's own health care bill limits it, but Obama said today that language isn't in there. Don't worry about it. You doctors can do whatever data collection we want you to do. So they're gonna step it up.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Andy McCarthy, friend of mine, just set me a note. "Rush, I love the doctor stuff. You notice something, Rush? You notice that this provision requiring the doctors to rat out their patients to the authorities essentially targets the innocent and harasses only doctors? As usual, criminals and lawyers are protected." This is an excellent point, by the way. That is, if you are an innocent person and you tell your doctor about legal guns in your house because he's asking, the doctor is now encouraged to report that to the government, lest the doctor be blamed if something bad happens later.

"But, Rush, old buddy, old pal, if you are a criminal who's just committed a mass murder, killed a bunch of the children, and you tell your lawyer about what you've done, the lawyer can't tell anybody. It's a privileged communication. Your attorney must never disclose it, and if he violates that confidence, the information can never be used against you in court. Good to know, as Obama decides which legal privilege to shred.

"He's making sure to target the right people, the innocent. It's the innocent who get reported on. It's the innocent who are interviewed. It's the innocent who are asked about, by the doctors, and somehow the doctor/patient privilege does not extend to whatever you tell your doctor about guns in your house," and don't forget where that started. This started with Clinton in the nineties with pediatricians being required to ask little kids about their parents (primarily their daddies) and guns in the house.